On the Face of the Waters Part 62

But Hafzan, her veil up to prevent mistakes, limped over to where the Moulvie lay, turned him gently on his back, straightened his limbs and closed his eyes. She would have liked to tell the truth to someone, but there was no one to listen. So she left him there before the tribunal to which he had appealed.

CHAPTER VI.

REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

So the strain of months was over on the Ridge. Delhi was taken; the Queen's health was being drunk night after night in the Palace of the Moghuls. But there was one person to whom the pa.s.sing days brought a growing anxiety. This was Kate Erlton; for there were no tidings of Jim Douglas. None.

At first she had comforted herself with the idea that he was still, for some reason or another, keeping to the yet unconquered part of the city; that he was obliged to do so being impossible, the long files of women and children seeking safety and pa.s.sing through the Ridge fearlessly precluding that consolation. Still it was conceivable he might be busy, though it seemed strange he should have sent no word.

So, like many another in India at that time, she waited, hoping against hope, possessing her soul in patience. She had no lack of occupation to distract her. How could there be for a woman, when close on twelve hundred men had come back from the city dead or wounded?

But now the 21st of September was upon them. The city was occupied, the work was over. Yet Captain Morecombe, coming back from it, shook his head. He had spent time and trouble in the search, but had failed--failed even, from Kate's limited ideas of their locality, to find either Tara's lodging or the roof in the Mufti's quarter. She could have found them herself, she said almost pathetically; but of course that was impossible now, and would be so for some time to come.

"I'm afraid it is no use, Mrs. Erlton," said the Captain kindly.

"There is not a trace to be found, even by Hodson's spies. Unless he is shut up somewhere, he--he must be dead. It is so likely that he should be; you must see that. Possibly before the siege began. Let us hope so."

"Why?" she asked quickly. "You mean that there have been horrible things done of late?--things like that poor soldier who was found chained outside the Cashmere gate as a target for his fellows? Have there? I would so much rather know the worst,--I used always to tell Mr. Douglas so,--it prevents one dreaming at night." She shivered as she spoke, and the man watching her felt his heart go out toward her with a throb of pity. How long, he wondered irrelevantly, would it take her to forget the miserable tragedy, to be ready for consolation?

"Yes, there have been terrible things on both sides. There always are.

You can't help it when you sack cities," he replied, interrupting himself hastily with a sort of shame. "The Ghoorkhas had the devil in them when I was down in the Mufti's quarter. They shot dozens of helpless learned people in the Chelon-ke-kucha--one who coached me up for my exams. And about twelve women in the house of a 'Professor of Arabic'--so he styled himself--jumped down the wall to escape--their own fears chiefly. For the men wanted loot, nothing else. That is the worst of it. The whole story from beginning to end seems so needless.

It is as if Fate----"

She interrupted him quietly, "It has been Fate. Fate from beginning to end."

He sat for an instant with a grave face, then looked up with a smile.

"Perhaps. It's rather _apropos des bottes_, Mrs. Erlton, but I wanted to ask you a question. Hadn't you a white c.o.c.katoo, once? When you first came here. I seem to recollect the bird making a row in the veranda when I used to drive up."

Her face grew suddenly pale, she sat staring at him with dread in her eyes. "Yes!" she replied with a manifest effort, "I gave it to Sonny Seymour because--because it loved him----" She broke off, then added swiftly, eagerly, "What then?"

"Only that I found one in the Palace to-day. There is a jolly marble latticed balcony overlooking the river. The King used to write his poetry there, they say. Well! I saw a bra.s.s cage hanging high up on a hook--there has been no loot in the precincts, you know, for the Staff has annexed them; I thought the cage was empty till I took it down from sheer curiosity, and there was a dead c.o.c.katoo."

"Dead!" echoed Kate, with a quick smile of relief. "Oh! how glad I am it was dead."

Captain Morecombe stared at her. "Poor brute!" he said under his breath. "It was skin and bone. Starved to death. I expect they forgot all about it when they got really frightened. They are cruel devils, Mrs. Erlton."

The Major had used the self-same words to Alice Gissing eighteen months before, and in the same connection. But, perhaps fortunately for Kate in her present state of nervous strain, that knowledge was denied to her. Even so the coincidence of the bird itself absorbed her.

"It had a yellow crest," she began.

"Oh! then it couldn't have been yours," interrupted Captain Morecombe, rather relieved, for he saw that he had somehow touched on a hidden wound. "This one was green; yellowish green. I dare say the King kept pets like the Oude man----"

"It is dead anyhow," said Kate hurriedly.

And the knowledge gave her an unreasoning comfort. To begin with, it seemed to her as if those fateful white wings, which had begun to overshadow her world on that sunny evening down by the Goomtee river, had ceased to hover over it. And then this rounding of the tale--for that the bird was little Sonny's favorite she did not doubt--made her feel that Fate would not leave that other portion of it unfinished.

The inevitable sequence would be worked out somehow. She would hear something. So once more she waited like many another; waiting with eyes strained past the last known deed of gallantry for the end which surely must have been n.o.bler still. When that knowledge came, she told herself, she would be content.

Yet there was another thing which held her to hope even more than this; it was the remembrance of John Nicholson's words, "If ever you have a chance of making up." They seemed prophetic; for he who spoke them was so often right. Men talking of him as he lingered, watching, advising, warning, despite dire agony of pain and drowsiness of morphia, said there was none like him for clear insight into the very heart of things.

Yet he, as he lay without a complaint, was telling himself he had been blind. He had sought more from his world than there was in it. And so, though the news of the capture of the Burn Bastion brought a brief rally, he sank steadily.

But Hodson, coming into his tent to tell him of the safe capture of the King and Queen upon the 21st at Humayon's Tomb, found him eager to hear all particulars. So eager, that when the Sirdars of the Mooltanee Horse (a regiment he had practically raised), who sat outside in dozens waiting for every breath of news about their fetish, would not keep quiet, he emphasized his third order by a revolver bullet through the wall of the tent. Greatly to their delight since, as they retired further off, they agreed that Nikalseyn was Nikalseyn still; and surely death dare not claim one so full of life?

Even Hodson smiled in the swift silence in which the laboring breath of the dying man could be heard.

"Well, sir," he went on, "as I was saying, I got permission, thanks to you, to utilize my information----"

"You mean Rujjub Ali's and that sneak Elahi Buksh's, I suppose," put in Nicholson. "It was sharp work. The King only went to Humayon's Tomb yesterday. They must have had it all cut and dried before, surely?"

"The Queen has been trying to surrender on terms some time back, sir,"

replied Hodson hastily. "She has a lot of treasure--eight lakhs, the spies tell me--and is anxious to keep it. However, to go on. After stopping with Elahi Buksh that night--no doubt, as you say, pressure was put on them then--they went off, as agreed, to meet Bukht Khan, but refused to go with him. Of course the promise of their lives----"

"Then you were negotiating already?"[9]

"Not exactly--but--but I couldn't have done without the promise unless Wilson had agreed to send out troops, and he wouldn't. So I had to give in, though personally I would a deal rather have brought the old man in dead, than alive. Well, I set off this morning with fifty of my horse and sent in the two messengers while I waited outside. It was nearly two hours before they came back, for the old man was hard to move. Zeenut Maihl was the screw, and when Bahadur Shah talked of his ancestors and wept, told him he should have thought of that before he let Bukht Khan and the army go. In fact she did the business for me; but she stipulated for a promise of life from my own lips. So I rode out alone to the causeway by the big gate--it is a splendid place, sir; more like a mosque than a tomb, and drew up to attention. Zeenut Maihl came out first, swinging along in her curtained dhooli, and Rujjub, who was beside me, called out her name and t.i.tles decorously.

I couldn't help feeling it was a bit of a scene, you know; my being there, alone, and all that. Then the King came in his palkee; so I rode up, and demanded his sword. He asked if I were Hodson-sahib bahadur and if I would ratify the promise? So I had to choke over it, for there were two or three thousand of a crowd by this time. Then we came away. It was a long five miles at a footpace, with that crowd following us until we neared the city. Then they funked. Besides I had said openly I'd shoot the King like a dog despite the promise at the first sign of rescue. And that's all, except that you should have seen the officer's face at the Lah.o.r.e gate when he asked me what I'd got in tow, and I said calmly, 'Only the King of Delhi.' So that is done."

"And well done," said Nicholson briefly, reaching out a parched right hand. "Well done, from the beginning to the end."

Hodson flushed up like a girl. "I'm glad to hear you say so, sir," he replied as nonchalantly as he could, "but personally, of course, I would rather have brought him in dead."

Even that slight action, however, had left Nicholson breathless, and the only comment for a time came from his eyes; bright, questioning eyes, seeking now with a sort of pathetic patience to grasp the world they were leaving, and make allowances for all shortcomings.

"And now for the Princes," said Hodson. "Did you write to Wilson, sir?"

Nicholson nodded, "I think he'll consent. Only--only don't make any more promises, Hodson. Some of them must be hung; they deserve death."

His hearer gave rather an uneasy look at the clear eyes, and remarked sharply: "You thought they deserved more than hanging once, sir."

The old imperious frown of quick displeasure at all challenge came to John Nicholson's face, then faded into a half-smile. "I was not so near death myself. It makes a difference. So good-by, Hodson. I mayn't see you again." He paused, and his smile grew clearer, and strangely soft. "No news, I suppose, of that poor fellow Douglas, who didn't agree with us?"

"None, sir; I warned him it was useless and foolhardy to go back when my information----"

"No doubt," interrupted the dying man gently. "Still, I'd have gone in his place." He lay still for a moment, then murmured to himself. "So he is on the way before me. Well! I don't think we can be unhappy after death. And, as for that poor lady--when you see her, Hodson, tell her I am sorry--sorry she hadn't her chance." The last words were once more murmured to himself and ended in silence.

Kate Erlton, however, did not get the message which would, perhaps, have ended her lingering hope. Major Hodson was too busy to deliver it. Permission to capture the Princes was given him that very night, and early the next morning he set off to Humayon's Tomb once more, with his two spies, his second in command, and about a hundred troopers. A small party indeed, to face the four or five thousand Palace refugees who were known to be in hiding about the tomb, waiting to see if the Princes could make terms like the King had done. But Hodson's orders were strict. He was to bring in Mirza Moghul and Khair Sultan, ex-Commanders-in-Chief, and Abool-Bukr, heir presumptive, unconditionally, or not at all.

The morning was deliciously cool and crisp, full of that promise of winter, which in its perfection of climate consoles the Punjabee for six months of purgatory. The sun sent a yellow flood of light over the endless ruins of ancient Delhi, which here extend for miles on miles.

A nasty country for skulking enemies; but Hodson's pluck and dash were equal to anything, and he rode along with a heart joyous at his chance; full of determination to avail himself of it and gain renown.

Someone else, however, was early astir on this the 22d of September, so as to reach Humayon's Tomb in time to press on to the Kutb, if needs be. This was the Princess Farkhoonda Zamani. Ever since that day, now more than a week past, when the last message to the city had warned her that the supreme moment for the House of Timoor was at hand, and she had started from her study of Holy Writ, telling herself piteously that she must find Prince Abool-Bukr--must, at all sacrifice to pride, seek him, since he would not seek her--must warn him and keep his hand in hers again--she had been distracted by the impossibility of carrying out her decision. For, expecting an immediate sack of the town, the Mufti's people had barricaded the only exit bazaar-ward, and when, after a day or two, she did succeed in creeping out, it was to find the streets unsafe, the Palace itself closed against all. But now, at least, there was a chance. Like all the royal family, she knew of these two spies, Rujjub-Ali and Mirza Elahi Buksh, who was saving his skin by turning Queen's evidence. She knew of Hodson sahib's promise to the King and Queen. She knew that Abool-Bukr was still in hiding with the arch-offenders, Mirza Moghul and Khair Sultan, at Humayon's Tomb. Such an a.s.sociation was fatal; but if she could persuade him to throw over his uncles, and go with her, and if, afterward, she could open negotiations with the Englishmen, and prove that Abool-Bukr had been dismissed from office on the very day of the death challenge, had been in disgrace ever since--had even been condemned to death by the King; surely she might yet drag her dearest from the net into which Zeenut Maihl had lured him--with what bait she scarcely trusted herself to think! The first thing to be done, therefore, was to persuade Abool to come with her to some safer hiding. She would risk all; her pride, her reputation, his very opinion of her, for this. And surely a man of his nature was to be tempted. So she put on her finest clothes, her discarded jewels, and set off about noon in a ruth--a sort of curtain-dhoolie on wheels drawn by oxen, gay with trappings, and set with jingling bells. They let her pa.s.s at the Delhi gate, after a brief look through the curtains, during which she cowered into a corner without covering her face, lest they might think her a man, and stop her.

"By George! that was a pretty woman," said the English subaltern who pa.s.sed her, as he came back to the guard-room. "Never saw such eyes in my life. They were as soft, as soft as--well! I don't know what. And they looked, somehow, as if they have been crying for years, and--and as if they saw--saw something, you know."

"They saw you--you sentimental idiot--that's enough to make any woman cry," retorted his companion. And then the two, mere boys, wild with success and high spirits, fell to horse-play over the insult.

Yet the first boy was right. Newasi's eyes had seen something day and night, night and day, ever since they had strained into the darkness after Prince Abool-Bukr when he broke from the kind detaining hand and disappeared from the Mufti's quarter. And that something was a flood of sunlight holding a figure, as she had seen it more than once, in a wild unreasoning paroxysm of sheer terror. It seemed to her as if she could hear those white lips gasping once more over the cry which brought the vision. "Why didst not let me live mine own life, die mine own death? but to die--to die needlessly--to die in the sunlight perhaps."